More Than A Maybe (29 page)

The woman takes a large wadded-up plastic bag of bread crusts out of her coat pocket. She drags out a handful with an old gnarled hand, throwing the crusts in a wide arc with a surprisingly graceful motion.

“Ducks!” she shouts, the commanding sound of her voice echoing across the surface of the pond. “Ducks!”

I look around. There are no ducks.

The woman pushes the bag of bread in my direction. “Go on. You can help me feed them.”

I reach an uncertain hand slowly into the plastic bag and pull out a fistful of bread, then throw it onto the lake. This seems to satisfy the woman, and we take turns like that together, tossing the pieces out over the water until the bag is empty. She crinkles it up, stuffs it back into her pocket.

I look at all the pieces of bread bobbing on the surface of the frigid water.

“They’ll be along soon?” I ask. “Won’t they?”

“What?”

“I just mean . . . I don’t see them. The ducks.”

The old woman frowns. “Don’t you worry about them. I know they come. The bread’s gone every day when I come back, so . . .”

I pause.

Part of me feels like I should let it go . . . but I don’t.

“Okay,” I say, looking at the soggy bread, “except that maybe it just gets wet and sinks. I mean, isn’t it too cold for the ducks right now? Don’t they go south or something?”

The woman seems to consider this for a moment — then she shakes her head.

“Little girl,” she says, “I come here every day except Sunday, because that’s when I go to service and that’s when God takes care of the ducks for me. And I know the ducks come here. Because I see them sometimes. And even when I don’t see them I know they come because the bread is gone.”

She looks at me, opening one eye very wide. “I think you are maybe a . . .
logical
person,” she says. “I used to know a lot of logical people. You can find them everywhere in this city. But let me tell you this: if you aren’t careful, you can logic your way out of a
perfectly good routine.
”

With that, she turns away. She steadies her walker, and then begins to shuffle her way toward the path, a bit faster than before.

I look at the bread until I can no longer hear the sound of her footsteps.

Then I head back to Jayla’s.

* * *

Just as I expect, Jayla is entirely thrilled about my new position at Rogers. As soon as she’s back from her afternoon class she attacks me with hugs.

“Damn! This girl right here knows how to get a JOB. That is what this girl knows how to DO.”

Jayla doesn’t have to dance that night, so she insists on taking me out to dinner to celebrate. I’m not exactly in the mood, but Jayla looks too psyched up for me to protest. We end up going out for vegetarian Chinese, and we talk for hours over big steaming plates of moo goo gai pan and broccoli-tofu.

“So,” she says. “Christmas coming up. You got plans for that?”

I shake my head. “Not really.”

She points at me with her chopsticks. “You do now. You and me. Yuletide cheer, bitch.”

I frown between heavily sauced mouthfuls of broccoli. “Oh, come on — I don’t want to mess up whatever your plans are . . . ”

“Like I said, you’re my plans. Let’s just say I don’t really come from a Yuletide cheer kind of family. We’ll leave it at that, okay?”

She’s not taking no for an answer — so I just agree, and shovel more Chinese food into my mouth. Jayla picks up the check again.

“Come on,” I protest. “You have to let me pay for dinner one of these days.”

“Oh, don’t you worry. I know you’ll get me back,” she says. “First paycheck you get, you are gonna feed me something amazing. Steak. Some of that 3-star Gold Coast shit.”

I laugh, and I promise her I will — but for now, on behalf of my wallet and my stomach, I’m incredibly grateful.

At first Jayla’s constant encouragement and enthusiasm are a source of power for me — a rock I can grab onto in the midst of all the chaos. For a while I can’t help but feel buoyed by her endless store of cheerfulness. But those feelings quickly begin to fade.

I still have weeks and weeks before my job starts. I honestly don’t know what to do with myself.

Jayla has a life and a schedule and I do not. While Netflix and vodka might be her fix for any and all existential crises, they really do nothing for me. I feel like a ghost, haunting Jayla’s apartment, drifting from bedroom to kitchen to sofa and back again in a listless daze.

I should be thrilled.

I know this. Still, no matter how many times I tell myself I’m lucky, it just never seems to stick. I try to tell myself that I am
myself,
I am
me,
that I can’t look at the lives of other people and think
that’s gonna be me too . . .

I feel ashamed, guilty. For judging those people. For judging myself.

All these thoughts swirl around inside my head, but before they drag me down completely an idea comes to me. I wake up one morning, and I know what I will do with myself as I wait for my job to begin.

I will knit something. For Jayla. For Christmas.

* * *

It’s been forever since I’ve done any knitting . . . but you never entirely forget how to
knit one purl two.
It all comes flooding back to me before I know it.

I go on the Internet and I find a pattern that I like, and then I go to Jo-Ann Fabrics and get myself enough yarn. I go bold, high-contrast — black and pink and purple. I even bite the bullet and get some of that stuff with those frustrating-but-funky metallic threads running through it. Something quintessentially Jayla.

Can I have it done and wrapped up under the tree by Christmas morning?
I try to figure out how much I’ll have to do per day. When I look at the calendar it looks tight, no question . . . but I realize that if I really buckle down and knit my fingers to the bone, I should be able to make it.

So I do. Whenever Jayla is off at school or Mirages, I crank up the stereo and I get to work. It’s wonderful to have something to do — and I’m suddenly focused so intently that I don’t have time to worry about anything else.

Jayla comes close to catching me once. She comes home early and surprises me, and I have to shove the knitting into the space between the sofa cushions and give her a not-very-innocent face.

“What are you doing?” she asks, jangling her house keys and looking at me sitting by myself.

“Just . . . listening to . . . some music.”

She gives me a smirk. “Why do I get the feeling that there’s more to this story? You look like you got a secret.”

I shrug, close my eyes, and give her a soft smile. “I have no idea if I have a secret or not — but if I do have a secret, it’s a secret.”

She laughs. “All right, fine. You and your secret have a real good day.”

Then she is gone. And I’m knitting again.

* * *

Before I know it it’s Christmas morning. I finish the gift in the nick of time, late on Christmas eve, while Jayla is snoring in the bedroom. I hold it up to admire my handiwork.

It looks truly bizarre, but I have to admit that it does scream
Jayla.
It’s a Polar Bear Hat with floppy mitten-paws attached to the sides.

Kind of.

At least, that’s what the original pattern was. The colors are a total mish-mash of inspiration, though . . . instead of white I’ve used black, and I’ve used pink and purple for the ears and the eyes and the paws.

Jayla falls in love with it instantly — she gives a little scream as soon as she sees it, plops it right down on her head and over her ears.

“You are kidding me, girl! You are
kidding
me!”

“Do you like it?”

“I love it! Is this why you’ve been doing all this 007 mystery shit around here?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Damn, now I just feel
bad,
” she says, grabbing under the tree for a red-ribboned box with her newly-knitted panda paws. “I mean, I got you something and all, but it’s not like a Lunatic Panda Hat or nothing . . . ”

“Lunatic Panda! That’s the perfect name for him,” I say, smiling and taking the gift from her.

“You think so? Well then . . . this is from me and L.P. For the new job. And to welcome you back to the old neighborhood.”

She gives me the box. I tear off the paper.

It’s a pink mug, a large insulated travel tumbler, perfect for hot coffee on cold morning commutes. It’s much more than that, though — Jayla’s taken the time and effort to make it personal. There’s a clear plastic ring circling the tumbler around the middle, and beneath it a whole collage of photos has been arranged for me.

Come to think of it, Jayla’s been waving her iPhone in my face more than usual these past few weeks
. There’s a photo of bed-headded me on the sofa with Domino; a burst of self-shots of Jayla making indescribable faces at the camera. There’s one of us together at the sushi shop, one of us at the Chinese place . . .

And then I see the one that makes me freeze.

It’s a photo I haven’t seen for a long, long time, but there’s no mistaking it — I recognize it instantly. It’s the group shot of me and the other girls on that night at Mirages. It seems like it was taken years ago . . . or lifetimes ago.

I can only hold the mug in my hand and stare at it in dull, hurt silence.

“Where . . . where did you get this . . . ” I begin, my voice faltering.

“From one of the other girls that was at Mirages that night,” Jayla says slowly — this obviously wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting. “She told me she’d been meaning to send it to you, but the way things ended that night she never got the chance, so I . . . hey, are you okay?”

I don’t say anything. I just stare at the mug in my hand, at the photo, at the other girls and myself, and it’s like I’m suddenly back there with them. We were Goddesses that night. Beautiful, confident, wearing our sex like an invincible shield against the desperation in that club . . .

I can’t say anything, so I just keep staring — like my gaze will burn away the photo, like I can melt it away with the heat of my glare . . . and then I feel the hot sting of tears in my eyes, and then I’m sobbing, hard and fast and uncontrollably.

Jayla is stunned. “Oh baby — I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I mean, I know that was a tough night for you. It’s just that you looked so great in that photo. I thought . . . I don’t know, I just wanted you to remember that some good things happened that night, that’s all. I mean, look at you . . . just
look
at you . . . ” She wipes at her eyes, and through my tears I can see that Jayla is crying now too — something I realize I’ve never seen before. “Damn it, I am
terrible
at giving gifts,” she says.

I reach out to hold her, and she holds me, and we just cry for a bit together, neither of us trying to hold back, just letting the tears come, and we let ourselves cry out the pain.

“I’m an idiot . . . ” she says, her voice shaking with sobs. “So fucking stupid . . .”

The tears are a beautiful dark release, and I don’t want them to stop — but I force myself, make myself, because Jayla is my friend, my perfect friend, and she needs to know why.

“It’s not you. It’s not,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut, willing the tears to stop washing down my cheeks. “It’s just . . . when I look at that photo, it’s like seeing a person I couldn’t become. I remember . . . oh, God, I remember what it was like. To feel like I could take on anything that night. And for a couple of seconds on that stage I felt it. It actually felt right — it felt
real.
Like I could handle myself. Take care of myself. For the first time since my mom . . . since my mom . . . ”

It’s becoming harder, and my crying is threatening to block out my voice, but I won’t let the tears beat me . . . I refuse to let them win. Jayla holds me tight, and her warm strength gives me all I need to continue.

“I felt like I was in control. Finally, for once in my life. And it wasn’t about the dancing or the club or the routine. It was about doing what I wanted, being what I wanted for one moment . . . and then . . . then . . . oh Jayla, then
HE wrecked everything . . .
”

Jayla squeezes me tight. “Shh. I know, I know . . . ”

The tears break through the last of my resolve, and I let Jayla hold me as I cry uncontrollably in her arms. I don’t know what is left of me — who I am, what I am any more. I’m a stranger to myself . . . as much a stranger as the girl in the picture on that coffee mug.

Jayla takes me over to the sofa, then gets me a box of tissues and a cozy fleece blanket. I cry until I can’t cry another drop.

And then, even though I’ve just woken up, I am truly and utterly exhausted.

I close my eyes.

Everybody dreams, I suppose.

I just don’t usually remember mine. Maybe I sleep too soundly, or maybe some part of me doesn’t want to remember the dreams when I wake, and I just let the images slip into the ether.

This time I remember, though.

I’m back.

I’m back on stage at Mirages. It’s the same pounding circus of rhythmic chaos as on that first fateful night —  the noise, the lights, the insistent strain of Britney’s voice over the speakers.

Everything is the same . . .

Except that the club is nearly empty. Empty, save for one solitary figure sitting by the stage.

Xavier.

He’s looking at me this time, fixing me with one of his piercing stormy gazes. I ignore it, I ignore him . . . I just go into my routine, smoothly and perfectly and naturally, just as I’ve practiced.

He speaks — and somehow, with that very strange logic you sometimes find in dreams, his voice cuts cleanly through the din of the club and the music, and I hear him perfectly.

“I’m here,” he says.

I keep dancing — beautifully, flawlessly.

“Nobody asked you to come,” I say, not pausing, not stopping — knitting the music and movement together with my body, seamlessly weaving a tapestry of erotic motion.

“But I’m here,” Xavier says, his voice insistent.

I look at him, careful not to lose the count — you must never lose the count,
you must never never lose the count . . .